Imran should not have spoken about Rs10b offer: Asad Umar

PTI leader also insisted there was no doubt that offer to back down from Panamagate case was made via PML-N

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Asad Umar on Wednesday said he believes his party chairman, Imran Khan, should not have spoken about the Rs10 billion offer without the consent of the person who made the offer.

Talking to a private news channel, the PTI leader insisted there was no doubt that the offer to back down from the Panamagate case was in fact made via the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and that he even knows the name of the person who made the offer.



“He [Imran Khan] should not have made the claim. I know, by the way, that it is true and I even know the name of the person who made the offer. But I cannot reveal the name without that person’s consent,” said the PTI leader during the interview.

Asad clarified that the Chairman PTI too “should not have spoken about the offer without the consent of the person who offered him the money.”

“When the Sharif brothers are in trouble or want to acquire something, does anyone doubt that they are ready to devote money?” asked the PTI leader, reproving Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif.

“Have the people of Pakistan forgotten Changa Manga? When a sitting high court judge claimed: “I am a loyalist”? Or have we forgotten the time the keys to a BMW were sent to a sitting army chief, which he refused to take?” asked the PTI loyalist.

It is a part of their (Sharif brothers) everyday politics to use money whenever they feel 'work' needs to be done, said Asad.

The PTI leader was illuminating Imran Khan’s recent claim, made on April 25, that the PML-N government offered him Rs10 billion to back down from the Panamagate case.



While addressing participants at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH&RC) in Peshawar, Imran claimed that if the PML-N government could offer him such a huge amount then one could only imagine what they would be willing to offer investigation organisations probing the Panamagate case.

“We will not stop pursuing the Panamagate case until the prime minister resigns,” he said.

A five-judge Supreme Court (SC) bench, earlier this month, had declared that PM Nawaz and his family failed to justify how they accumulated their offshore assets. The court, failing to reach a consensus on the disqualification of the premier, ordered the formation of a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to settle the saga that started with the Mossack Fonseka leaks just over a year ago.